Dredd made $36 million against a $45 million budget, which is bad news even when you’re not fighting against a Stallone movie dragging on your reputation like a cinder block tied around your neck.

But we can still redress this wrong: Pete Travis’ arty, and arguably brilliant, take on Judge Dredd hits home video today. Why should you buy it?

It Was The Most Faithful Comic Book Adaptation To Hit Screens

We’re not knocking The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises, superb movies both. But Dredd probably got the closest to actually reading the comic it was based off of this year. It wasn’t front and center, and you didn’t need to read the comic to enjoy the movie. But it’s the little touches that made it, like Dredd, never once, removing his helmet.

There’s Some Heavyweight Talent Behind The Camera

Pete Travis was an odd choice for the material. He’s a socially conscious director, trained as a social worker, whose other movies have been about topics like the end of apartheid in South Africa. At some point, his name and the word “Oscar” are likely to be tied together.

He also did a superb job with this movie, carefully keeping the atmosphere realistic while also sticking to the spirit of the comic. Similarly, the script, by novelist Alex Garland (The Beach, The Tesseract) is an action movie where it needs to be and often more thoughtful than you’d expect. Garland’s mockery of the “traitor in the midst” trope, for example, is a hoot, and best not ruined here.

Karl Urban Is Great

As an actor, he can be a bit wooden in places. But here, he’s perfect, showing the right amount of righteousness and subtle humor. The “Hot Shot” gag alone is worth the price of entry. This isn’t to knock the rest of the cast, particularly Leona Headey’s cracked-out, angry and practical Ma-Ma.

John Wagner Liked It

OK, that sounds minor, but considering how often creators of comic book characters find the movie to be terrible, getting John Wagner’s seal of approval is nothing to sneeze at. Likely improving his opinion was Garland actually asking him a few questions about the comic and his ideas behind it, instead of Stallone just cutting Wagner a check and telling him to go away.

In short, if you love comics, and you love movies, it’s worth the cash to check out. Do so: We could use a sequel.

I totally agree. I loved that I could see the action sequences in Dredd and they weren’t shaky cam / shaky edited. One of my biggest complaints about the Expendables movies. You can’t do a throwback, but use the worst, cheap, lazy gimmick of action movie making these days.

I figured there would be far less kung-fu fighting and a lot more futurist dystopian political subtext. I was impressed with The Raid’s simple premise and I’m excited to see it moved to a different sub-genre of action film… jeez that sounded awfuly douchbaggy… MOAR GUNZ!

nope, actually they started work on writing Dredd a year before The Raid was started, so it’s pure coincidence. (or The Raid director heard a synopsis and dropped the movie he was working on to make The Raid instead, which seems unlikely)

That’s because they did it right: They shot it entirely in 3D, and transferred that to 2D, instead of vice versa. 2D to 3D generally looks terrible because it’s a choppier process and you lose a couple of stops of light between the transfer and the final projection.

Slo-Mo was the kicker for me. It’s something that could have been terribly executed, but Padhilla and Co. handled it perfectly. Let’s also not forget that Headey was a more than capable villain who was, really, playing a character outside of her comfort zone.

Urban was definitely fantastic casting and Thirlby showed the same promise she delivered in Juno and The Wackness.

I grew up with 2000AD and Judge Dredd,not seen the film as yet but just on the strength of the trailers and reviews alone,its a mouth watering prospect(got it ordered on blu ray)
Its bringing back the pangs of excitements back that i used to get waiting for the comic to be delivered on fridays 30 yrs ago…
Its very rare for so many people involved with the film to pay so much attention and respect to the original source material,and it seems it shows in the end product…
Urban being a fan of the comic as a child will have enhanced his understanding of what was required no end,not to mentionhis desire to do the role “justice” lol..
The setting for the …Mega city one was set amongst the ruins of the Eastern seaboard of the USA, and all the material was written for 2000AD comic in 1977 and in the yrs following that,so to say Dredd is a straight rip off of the Raid is at best misguided…When in fact the character and material for this movie existed way before the idea for the Raid was even toyed with…Just cannot wait…..

Yep, 100% correct. It’s the little touches throughout as well that were awesome, like one of the blocks in the opening being called ‘Sternhammer’, criminals called perps, use of ‘muties’ in graffiti and other spot on nods to 2000ad. Plus Olivia Thirlby is smokin’ and Karl Urban is a badass

I totally agree! this movie made me happy just for the fact is was like the comic in so many ways, and did not muttle it with a half assed attempt at some deep story or sentimentality, that is not what Dredd is.